By Dan Kennedy • The press, politics, technology, culture and other passions

Severin watch

The Globe’s Geoff Edgers today reports that right-wing/ libertarian/ frat-boy radio-talk-show host Jay Severin is going national. Severin, of course, is best known for his charming descriptions of Hillary Clinton as a “socialist” and a “pig,” and for his blow-torch rhetoric against “towelheads” and “wetbacks.”

The silver lining in Edgers’s piece is that there’s a chance Severin will disappear from the local airwaves.

Meanwhile, longtime Severin nemesis Scot Lehigh, in his Globe column today, accuses Severin of having falsely claimed to have won a Pulitzer Prize. No doubt Severin will be trashing Lehigh today from 3 to 7 p.m.

Oh, look: here’s a website that claims Severin is too liberal. Good grief.

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8 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    A couple of things, Dan…First, NO, he won’t have the b@lls to respond or explain, ie spin and lie and covr up and do the old: “No, I didn’t say exactly that. Don’t put words in my mouth”Good Ole’ Sean Vannity is filling in as expected today. Ohh…sorry, Jay, you are away braking the bubbly for celebration…ooooo-kay!!He is after all, a COWARD, just like his PD and his station.You forgot his favorite name for Hillary, ie COW.And, I am still trying to figure out how WTKK would explain the fact that Jay is officially in the open NOT originating from Boston after all and all of sudden announce officially now that he hails from NY. How is that shift going to be done – if they are to carry it at all- going to be finessed?? It is a delicate ..shall we say…climbdown.And Dan, I am perplexed to see you glad he might be leaving town. I always felt you always were willing to ‘give him the benefit of the doubt’ in your own words and didn’t seem to mind him too much and dismissed him too easily as a non-factor and not worth raising any alarms about.I always thought it was out of courtesy that you knew the man – big word here for a small coward- and weren’t willing to publicly lash out at him as you dutifully do with others.But I don’t think he is leaving town yet. I hope you are right, Dan…But I am afraid it isn’t the case and the cat is already out of the bag. These Radio syndications are in big trouble and are on shaky grounds and will sign up just about anyone as long as they stand out enough and can bring in more traffic. Same goes for greedy stupid WTKK. Desperate and without principles.Right now they are bringing a lot of cash but the future is very bleak. They are cutting down on commercial time and the number of commercials to stay competitive and more people are jumping to satellite, especially with the addition of customized local info like traffic on satellite.Why else would Viacom be trying to ditch and sell Infinity. They have some huge spikes in election times but without Sports, radio would be in a lot worse shape.There other hosts who say all sorts of outrageous and insane things all day but they are still on the air. Sometimes, someone will complain and start a wave hard to stem but very often the fascist Matt Mills’ of the world will help them weather it.Karmazin did the same for Stern. We all know the details on that subject.If you are Severin though, you must be relieved not to have to lie everyday by pretending you are a Bean Town loyal trhough and through. Remember that he refuses to deal with ‘local issues because they are less relevant’ but because he doesn’t know ANYTHING about politics and history of this town since he is not explosed to it everyday.Entercom’s WRKO and WEEI – who easily beat his show even on the AM- have been running ads saying “…that other FM guy from his basement in Long Island…” or close to it.Most important, it maybe a good thing if you don’t like his shtick since his lies and inconstencies are oign to be exposed on a national level now and will sink faster.By that I mean, he was on Imus yesterday chiding Bush and the Iraq initiative when he was behind all things Bush all the time all along. Now he is going with the wave and flipflopping to avoid being tarnished any further. How can he ride Bush’s coattails when hte latter’s approval ratings are in the 40% range???Jay’s logic is wrong and incomplete and deceiving and dangerous and most importantly and unfortunately still efective to a small extent since somep ignorant morons still call him to agrre with and compliment him. There is always those airheads and bimbos and ignorant that will be a possible national audience for him.One of the tactics WTKK resorts to to protect its ratings is to sabotage WBUR frequencies. They have a secondary signal in the 90.9 range that really crowds BUR badly and makes it inaudible. Now I frankly have grown bored with BUR’s shtick and cadence but I’d still listen to it and the BBC rather than Fascist radio 96.9 FM. I can’t catch any of it in the Boston area, in town, and on a few radios. That is so unnatural with the BUR signal being so close and relatively strong.I hope the FCC gets to learn about this or the sleepy idiots at BUR who miss every opportunity to better their station. Maybe LaCamara – A GREAT addition- will reverse missteps and also address this WTKK and SEVERIN conspiracy to skew ratings.(listening ‘BUR???)I can’t wait until Jay kicks the ‘loyal Best and Brightest’ Boston fans and show how loyal he really is now that he has a bigger Mic. It would show his true stripes. He has never been part of ANY winning or great campaign and yet takes credit for such work. The only work he lovingly touts and tries to get credit for is for Buchanan. Which is GREAT for us and embrassing for him since Pat does not agree with him on ANYTHING today , in style nor substance, and has done complete 180’s and has sounded very reasonable and much more level-headed that Jay will ever sound. (Ever watch him on McLaughlin or read his recent books/articles??)So the Buchanan link would sink him even more quickly and embarrasingly on a national stage.One thing is true about the show: its title ‘ Jay Has Issues’Indeed does.N. PS: This post has been adapted from my earlier post on Jurkowitz’s MediaLog2 posting.

  2. Anonymous

    Brevity is indeed the soul of wit.(Pretty much everyone who reads Dan, reads Mark as well). Switch to decaf, “N”.

  3. Anonymous

    How about you stick your foot in you rmouth and keep you provocative thoughts to yourself.Enlighten us with a new opinion or piece of info. In my mind, the existence of such creature in such a town is so repulsive and what he does day in and day out on the air and off is repulsive, I make it a point to shine a light on this piece of garbage.You are obviously of the same cloth, since you are not interested in the subject at hand of something I said you agree or disagree with, but how long my post is. YOU must be a bitchy airheaded kind. You can go back to your failed critic life under the rock, now.Typical right wing Sean Vannity tactic sh!t: Nevermind the issue or the argument, wait until the end, pick on a minor detail or side item and try to dismiss the whole issue.What a coward!PS Are you Matt Mills responding anonymously???? haaaaaaaaa

  4. Anonymous

    N., shouldn’t you be out on a ledge somewhere? Anon is right: when it comes to blogs, brevity counts. Perhaps you should start your own, instead of hijacking Dan’s.Mike_B

  5. Anonymous

    Thanks, Mike. Blogs have replaced neighborhood taverns as venues for exchanges of thought, (no one punches you here, though). Same cast of characters; inability to articulate still results in verbosity.

  6. tony schinella

    Thanks, Mike. Blogs have replaced neighborhood taverns as venues for exchanges of thought, (no one punches you here, though). Same cast of characters; inability to articulate still results in verbosity. I like this thought: The beer is cheaper and the wife don’t complain that you aren’t at home … just that you are on the computer!

  7. pbeau

    So…Jimmy turns out a Pulitzer prize winner wanna be..??Sounds like a self esteem problem to me.Maybe his parents should have spent more timetelling him that “you are the best and the brightest Jimmy”

  8. Tom

    Thank you, very interesting!

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